Soybeans, e.g., when crushed or flaked, are subjected to solvent defatting, the residual soy flavor and the texture of the material is objectionable, unpalatable, and not like animal meat tissue used as food.
Many attempts have been made to make this solvent defatted soybean oil meal attractive, palatable, and meatlike. U.S. Pat. No. 2,260,254 to N. F. Kruse (Central Soya Company, Inc.), issued Oct. 21, 1941, teaches a process for preparing a food product from solvent-extracted soybean meal which consists of increasing the moisture level of such meal to a value of 15-30% and steam cooking the moistened meal "at a temperature above the boiling point of water" while keeping the meal in motion during such cooking. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,253,930 to Gould et al. teaches a method of heat-treating soybeans.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,022,919, May 10, 1977 to Comer (Griffith Labs), teaches removal of bitter flavor from pea flour by contacting the flour with moist steam while mixing per se. U.S. Pat. No. 3,883,676, May 13, 1975 to Strommer (General Mills) teaches "texturing" particulate protein material in an elongated cylinder treating chamber having an in-line of continuous cutter by passing a stream of gaseous fluid such as steam through the chamber under conditions of elevated pressure and elevated temperature.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,197,310, July 27, 1965 to Kjelson (General Mills) and U.S. Pat. No. Re. 27,790, Oct. 16, 1973 to Rusoff et al (General Foods) also teach processes for texturizing defatted oil seed protein material. Generally speaking, however, these and other prior art attempts have left much to be desired in terms of basic economics and/or product quality.
It is an object of the present invention to produce a superb texturized and deflavored defatted oil seed protein material product by an economically superior process.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a process to texturize and deflavor said material which will save energy.
Yet another object of the present invention is to produce a bland cooked soy material from soy white flakes which can be used as a ground beef extender.
Still another object is to provide a method to deflavor soybean material with steam so quickly that typical off-flavors caused by overcooking do not develop.